Father Fats Public House — Restaurant in Stevens Point

Father Fats is a restaurant that we have been looking forward to trying for some time since it was featured on Wisconsin Foodie. Chef Christian has definitely tried to create a robust menu that covers a lot of space, genres, and flavor profiles. The first thing that immediately hits when getting anywhere near the restaurant is that smoky BBQ flavor. It hits your nostrils and immediately, I could almost taste it! Nestled on a corner in downtown Steven's Point, I could sense the intimacy of the dining and bar area. On a busy night, I get the feeling it could easily be shoulder to shoulder, however we happened to luck out on a Saturday evening in the summer and we only waited about a half hour to sit on their patio/garden area in the back. A side note here, as I don't want to come off as perturbed at anything the staff did, because they were always funny, polite and courteous and very apologetic when things didn't seem to go as planned. The bar area was way too small for the guests they were serving and the bartender was clearly overwhelmed by both the bar area and having to make drinks for people already eating. She kept apologizing and making light of her situation which put everyone at ease, but I think in order to appease patrons, she was taking verbal orders from multiple parties, filling one or two of their drinks and then going to fill a drink order for someone at a table, then she would come back, forget who was next and re-ask what people wanted. It was great if you got your drink right away, but not so great if your friends had finished a drink and you were still waiting on yours. Also, some wines need to be kept cool in order to maintain their full flavor and it was clearly very warm in the bar and a friend of mine ordered a red wine and it was hard to drink when the wine was eighty degrees. My Father Fats Old Fashioned was delicious and reminded me of drinking a wonderfully soothing grapefruit/lemon drink. We were ushered outside to the patio area which was lovely in the setting sun and we were surrounded by a vegetable garden. It was lovely. We had a great and knowledgeable waitress who was also funny and charming. Now, we are foodies and knew we would be ordering a lot of plates to try. We did ask our waitress if we should order all of our food at once or if we should order 2-3 dishes at a time. She did say she would handle the spacing of everything. Clearly, however that was our biggest mistake of the evening. Everything was delicious and very appetizing, but the food came out in an odd order and sometimes several dishes at once. It got to the point where food was getting cold sitting there as we ate previous dishes. The nachos, which came out mid-meal, were getting soupy by the time we were eating them. I wish we were the wiser (and will be next time) to only order 2 dishes at a time before ordering more. Some of my favorites were the Mushroom Soup, the smoked salmon dip, the scallops, and the BBQ pork with mashed potatoes and corn. Overall, I would love to eat here again because the food is definitely the star attraction and well worth it, with some minor adjustments for ordering...

We were going to be near Rapids visiting family for my birthday, so I spent a while looking for somewhere in central WI that hit my “nice birthday dinner” bar, and this seemed like it would be the clear winner. And I was right! I stalked the menu for a few months and even though it rotates, there were consistently at least a half a dozen things that looked great, so I felt confident planning on a specific night even without knowing the exact menu until that day. We were a little wary not being able to make reservations with the drive, but we got there a little before 5 on a Saturday night and had no problem getting seating, though it definitely was filling up after us.

Everything we got was great, though everyone at my table had different favorites. The beef carpaccio was a standout for me, just sublime, good enough that I ordered a second round because tbh had I known it would be that good I wouldn’t have shared the first one with my husband quite so readily. Pork nachos were great (the pork itself was wonderful, smoky and tender), and my SIL would’ve happily had the sweet corn & asparagus risotto to herself. My husband really liked the kielbasa stroganoff and was also happy to have the chance to get a few standalone oysters, as the only seafood eater at the table. (Though this is a good place for it - lots on the menu pretty consistently.) Everyone at my table had different favorites but none of us were disappointed by anything we tried. We also had quite a few different cocktails and they were all great, though the Lemon Pepper Wet was a particular standout.

Re: cost, it was certainly not cheap but very reasonable for this kind of food, and I would say things were priced fairly… proportionately? That is, we got several different sizes of dish/item and I would say nothing surprised me re: how small or large it was for what it cost, based on the menu prices in relation to each other & the knowledge that it was more of a small/mixed plates place. I would say a full dinner here is more of a special occasion thing for my wallet, but given how good it was & how different it was from most other dining in the area it all seemed pretty fair.

Overall a great experience that lived up to my hopes for it, and a...

It is with a heavy heart that I leave a bad review for a restaurant that I have always liked. So I will start with the good, the servers were kind and expedient. The food was good, albeit almost the exact same food items on the menu the last four times we went... exact same. Which is odd for a restaurant that changes it's menu often. And now to the bad, the disgusting made me throw up in my mouth bad. Flies... there were so many flies, not one, not three, like fifteen + and also fruit flies. As soon as the cocktails were set on the table the fruit fly swarm came. We spent the whole pre-dinner cocktail time swatting aggressive fruit flies. The bar clearly has an infestation. It was upsetting but perhaps could be overlooked... Then dinner came and the black flies came. At one point I looked down and saw three flies swimming around in the sauce on my plate. I know some flies might come in during the late summer/autumn but this was not some flies this was all the flies and their cousins, their neighbors, and the fly they went to summer camp with. This perhaps sounds hyperbolic- it's not. There were more than 15 flies swarming our dinner and drinks. It was like being on the worst picnic... because the drinks we were guarding.. they were nasty- but at that price point you gotta drink them. I don't know who is curating the cocktail menu- but they are not good at it. I have always enjoyed getting one of the fun cocktails they serve- today they were terrible. One was so bad that even though it cost $10 it was wasted. It was disgusting. The second one I tried was better but like in that way that second degree sunburn is better than third degree- it's still bad but you won't die. I miss Dave, things have not been the same without him. If you have to go, wait until it's snowy and the flies are dead. They have to die sometime right? And don't waste your time on a fun cocktail it will be nasty.. for $10 they...